By Any Other Name
by unintentionalgenius
Summary: Shakespeare once said that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Well, all due respect to the Bard, but Sebastian Moran would argue that point.
1. Prologue

Shakespeare once said that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Well, all due respect to the Bard, but Sebastian Moran would argue that point. The Boss was not the same man as Jim who was not James who was not Moriarty. The Boss issued orders, made demands, told you exactly where and when and what but never why, and treated you more like a well-trained puppy than any employee. Jim was proper, well-mannered, _bieneducado, _opened doors for old ladies and carried their groceries up the three flights to their apartment even though it was 30 minutes out of his way; but it really wasn't at all, because what he really wanted was to get into that building without alarming anyone, and how better to do it than as Jim, nice guy extraordinaire? Moriarty was a threat, whispered or written, an idea more than a man, a schemer with a mind like a god, someone a smart person never made angry. He was the organization itself.

And then there was James; James was different. Sebastian, arguably the closest person to him, had only called him James, even mentally, five times.

Draw your own conclusions.


	2. 2007

It all started with that first meeting, when Seb first got the job. That's how the guy introduced himself: "James Moriarty, consulting criminal." You could almost hear it in his voice: _the only one in the world. I invented the job._ So how was he to know, half drunk and bored out of his mind, that this was not James? James he would meet later. This man had never crossed paths with James, and if he had, he'd probably shot him in the face without a second's thought.

So he says "Alright James. You've got yourself a deal," and feels the atmosphere change and it's wrong, everything about that name is wrong for this man. He's a snake, the devil you run to with your problems, he is "Please, Jim, will you fix it for me?". He is _not_ James. He hasn't been James since primary school. Hasn't been James since his Mum died at his Da's hands (but of course Sebastian doesn't know about that yet). So Sebastian backtracks and corrects himself; "Mr. Moriarty. Sir." And where did that come from? He hasn't addressed someone as 'sir' since he was discharged. Who the hell is this guy?

After a few days, it doesn't matter; he gives purpose to this dishonourably discharged soldier, gives him nicer guns than he's ever seen, fits him out with suits that cost more than an entire closet full of his clothes would have, before the military. He gives him jobs, gives him an apartment, gives him his choice of ammo. He doesn't give him a friend, but then who needs one? Seb's been fine for this long, he doesn't need anyone else. He gives him assignments, sometimes once a day, sometimes three in one hour, sometimes nothing for a week. He makes use of every talent Sebastian possesses, brings out his latent artistic ability, uses him to make statements. He's insane, but Seb doesn't mind. Crazy is something he knows; crazy, he can deal with.

Crazy isn't the best way to define Jim Moriarty, he realizes later. It's too simple, too neat, too common. The Boss is a tick mark in every box on a psych eval, everything wrong that can be, he's blood on your tongue and a knife in your hand and a cut that isn't allowed to heal. He's torture even the Spanish Inquisition couldn't dream up. Later, Sebastian comes to realize that The Boss is quickies in a bathroom stall because he gets off on almost getting caught, gets off on pain and expects the same of Seb, and the weirdest thing about it all is that nothing in Seb resists the utter surrender of his whole being to Jim, nothing shouts "THERE'S SOMETHING VERY WRONG HERE," because it's not surrender, ever: it's meeting the only other person in the world who hates it all as much as you do.


	3. 2008

It was a day like any other for Seb. There was a mission, and there was an interrogation, and he was more than happy to oblige. A few cuts here, a sliced hamstring there, an ear to send to his wife… In the end, he knifed the bastard, but not before (damn it all to hell) he had managed to grab Jim and put a knife to his throat. Sebastian Moran is calm under pressure; instead of making him shake, adrenaline makes him steady. So when his heart felt like it dropped to the pit of his stomach at the sight of Jim, eyes wide and vulnerable for a split second, slender body unable to extricate himself from the grip of a burly Russian mobster with muscles the size of toaster ovens and a nice, shiny, definitely sharp knife to his throat, it was a new sensation. One he'd never felt before, as a matter of fact. Colonel Sebastian Moran has never felt fear, not for himself, not for his men. Seb, on the other hand? Apparently so.

After Sebastian finished carving up the body, keeping his suit spotless (as usual), he noticed something incredibly disturbing. To a man who could kill literally without batting an eyelid, the idea of any series of events giving him the shakes was fucking terrifying. What the hell had happened to make him tremble like a wet kitten? It hit him hard, a metaphorical bullet to the chest: Jim Moriarty's life had been threatened. His Jim. _James_.

Well shit.

That could mean only one thing. (There was no fear of punishment in his reaction; he took punishment well. Sometimes _too _well.) Rather, it was a fear of unimaginable loss, and when had "lack of Jim" turned into_ loss_? Shit shit shit. Mind reeling, he traced his actions all the way back to that day, over a year ago now, when he first met Jim Moriarty. He'd saved him, not because of any sense of philanthropy, but because it was a damn waste to let such a talented sniper drink himself to death when there was an employer more than willing to engage his services. He had a talent, and ability, and Jim had seen that and made him into a monster to scare his enemies (and his clients) with. Those who weren't threatened enough by Moriarty were threatened with Moran, the invisible sniper. All he was, encompassed in a dot of red light on the face or torso. Human bodies are so vulnerable. Humanity creates weapons of such destruction, a single hit in nearly any area can easily prove fatal. Sebastian's job is so easy, but with Jim, it's a genuine pleasure. Except now, it was more than that. To reiterate: shit, Seb's in love with Jim. And Jim sure as hell does _not_ return the sentiment.


	4. 2009

The morning after the first time (it was Seb's first time with a man) he woke up a little later than usual and wandered into the kitchen they shared. It had been ages since he'd been more than an hour or two at his own apartment, which now was in reality only his legal address. The Boss paid the rent, paid the utilities, but Seb was never there. It was easier for him to bunk over. Faster processing time for orders. That's how this whole sex thing had gotten started; Jim had seduced him.

As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, the back of the world's greatest criminal mastermind was to him, and how strange was that? He alone, of every person in the man's acquaintance, was trusted implicitly. Maybe that's what possessed him with such courage; at any rate, the first words out of his mouth that morning were, "James, what the hell?" He could have been asking _What the hell did we just do? _or possibly _What the hell was this gash down my back from? _or _What the hell have I gotten myself into? _or maybe _What the hell do you see in me? What the hell do I have that a million others don't? What the hell are we doing here? What am __**I**__ doing here? _But he didn't add anything, just waited for an answer. He got one, though not the one he probably wanted: Jim turned, smiled a wicked, sexy smile, and walked away with his cup of coffee.

It was a variation on the same smile he'd get often, when Jim came back late or not at all, looking somehow disheveled and debauched but perfectly put together, and he'd just look at him and you could tell. He'd smile that smile, the one that said _Yes I fucked someone last night, and it wasn't you, and you can't do a damned thing about it, which kills you because while you're exclusive to me, I'm not exclusive to you and I can do whatever and whoever I want. _That smile that makes him call him something else, call him _you bastard_, and Jim still smiles that smile.And Seb, Sebastian Moran, the Colonel, one of the most deadly assassins in the world and certainly the best sniper, a man whose methods of torture were too inhumane for even the cruelest of warlords anywhere in Africa or Asia, would sit/stand/wait there and take it. Every. Damn. Time. He'd never hold it against him, not for long anyway, and he'd never refuse him anything. Not his gun, not his mind, not his body. It was Jim's, whatever he would do with it, and didn't Sebastian know it, and didn't it scare the hell out of him, but it was God's honest truth and there's no arguing with it. He didn't do it on purpose, never intended for a simple job to turn out this way, but it's the way of things all the same. If he's honest, which he always is, it's the best he's felt in a long time, and what the fuck does that say about him?

It took Sebastian a minute to notice the second cup, waiting patiently for him beside the coffee maker.


	5. 2012

He's sitting in that motherfucking stairwell with his shitty sightlines to Jim and his fucking target in perfect sight, damn him, and nothing about this job is the way he'd want it but as The Boss had told him this morning, that's why he's not in charge, so he's sitting around waiting to _maybe_ get to fuck shit up and without warning or a so much as _"Oh yes, Seb, today my backup plan is to blow my fucking brains out, do you have a problem with that, lover?"_, Jim Moriarty (or is he playing Rich Brook?) puts a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger and for once Sherlock Holmes and Sebastian Moran seem to be feeling on the same spectrum of emotion because holy hell…

And he sees it, not as well as he'd like but he sees it and he hears the echo of the gun's report against the buildings of London, of the city that he knows as intimately as he knows Jim's body, as Jim knows his, and he hates it. Hates anything and everything and it can all burn in hell. Christ. And when he hears the single shot, when he sees the pool of blood spilling from the prone form of a man who hasn't been vulnerable since he hit puberty, if not before (maybe not since his mum died), he utters one word, like a breath, like a prayer: "_James_." And then fucking Sherlock fucking Holmes the bloody genius boy who Jim felt it necessary to die for (Holmes was always more important to Jim; Seb never could come close), to die to beat him, well he jumps off the building and doesn't that just beat all, that in the end, The Boss won. So Seb dismantles his gun, and he's never been so mentally absent, but right now he feels like he's floating, and is that even possible? And bloody hell damn it all Jim is still laying there and of course he's not going to get up but it's safe to get up now, Jim. So get up. Get up, damn you. Get up, you bastard. We're going to get Chinese, remember? You refused, you fought me tooth and nail because I wanted fucking Thai but no, you hate Thai, so of course I caved and we're having bloody Chinese, but I'm not going to fucking bring it to you, do I look like a maid service or a waiter, no, so get your sweet little ass up so we can go pick it up and watch trashy telly and laugh at the mere mortals who think they can stop us, and God Jim please get up, why aren't you getting up?

Ex-Colonel Sebastian Moran picks up his bag that holds the pieces of his gun, calmly makes his way down the stairs, and vanishes.


	6. 2013

It's been a year, a year that's felt like a decade. Like a millennia. He must be at least a hundred by now. The seconds feel like centuries all by themselves, ticking along into oblivion. Sebastian has taken Jim's place at the center of the web, but he's no spider. He's a tiger. And no master sniper was meant to take the place of a consulting criminal.

He's watched as, one by one, Jim's men (or women) have been hunted down by Sherlock Holmes. Yes, they're still Jim's. Just like he is. Maybe if he were more like Jim, he could've stopped him. Maybe if he had half of Jim's brain, he'd have seen that the seemingly random attacks and losses were none other than Sherlock Holmes, back from the dead and letting nothing hinder him in his goal of wiping out every single threat to the life of that fucking doctor. Fucking John Watson, who the fuck was he to be so special? Jim had a pet, a live-in, and that didn't stop _him _from blowing his brains out.

But here he is, having watched what was once a truly brilliant, utterly terrifying criminal empire crumble at the hands of one man. Well, one man and his brother The British Government. He stands over the various sheaves of paper on the table, head bowed, back curved, arms and legs braced, feeling the verbal abuse Jim would subject him to if he were here. It feels like home.

He can almost hear him, but there's something missing. His mental version of The Boss lacks a certain creativity. Only Moriarty would threaten to make a woman into shoes. Seb's never been that creative. He's more of the straightforward, gets-off-on-pure-pain type. He misses the daft bastard, and admitting that is almost as painful as losing the arse all over again. Damn him to hell. If he wasn't already there.

Faintly, he hears the sounds of struggle from a few floors down. He should be concerned, but all he can do is feel tired. He's so fucking tired. He's been running this shit for almost two years now, and he was never cut out for it. He was made to take orders, not give them. He hasn't got the head for it. In the Army, almost every order had come down from on high. Sure,_ storm the hill _is easy but _kill him_, _blow up her car_, _send him a piece of his little girl every hour until he agrees_ are all much harder, so much more not his area. He's tired of being alone, tired of bearing the burden of the name, the word that means _fear_ in every language. He's tired of being Moriarty when he'd give anything to have the real one back. He's tired of giving orders that even he questions. He doesn't eat anymore; he stopped sleeping for more than an hour or two at a time months ago. Now he goes 36 hours at a stretch without sleep. He's started to look gaunt, and people shrink back from his (rare) touch almost as often and as strongly as they did from Jim. The exhaustion, constant and grinding, set in about 5 weeks ago and never left. Now it's all he can do to push off from the table as the sounds of scuffling make their way ever closer. At most, it's two floors away.

He should've seen this one coming, really: how many snipers had been set on John Watson, the day Sherlock Holmes died? Just one. Just Seb. He'd almost welcome it, except that it means he failed Jim. Hell, if not for the network, if not for the name, he'd have done it himself. What else was there, after living in the flames of Jim Moriarty and having that fire extinguished before your eyes? He had consumed everything about Sebastian that he could have claimed as his own, eaten him up entirely, without so much as a by-your-leave. It should have been painful, but it was the most delightful ecstasy. Perfect torment, a privilege to die for. Better than Queen and Country.

He had known it was coming for a long time. He'd had time to prepare. Fuck it all, though, he'd have failed Jim. Who builds a criminal empire and then leaves it to someone better suited to silent elimination from afar, every target assigned, no decisions except which gun is best with which ammo from which position? Fucking lunatic bastard. And damn fool that Sebastian was, he had followed blindly. He was devoted to the man, and hadn't rested in months, couldn't rest, because of it. He'd worked himself to the bone, trying to be Jim, but who could be Jim? So death, death would be a sweet release, a pleasant rest, even if it meant he were napping in hell. At least he'd be with Jim again. Or maybe he wouldn't; he _was_ going to hell, maybe they'd decide being with Jim made him too happy, was too much like bliss. Too much like his Heaven.

It only barely struck him that Colonel Sebastian Moran, most feared sniper in all of Europe, if not the entire world, was standing over a dinner table awaiting death rather than fighting off his assailant tooth and nail. Rather than being the predator, silent but lethal. Jim would be ashamed. And that's what it all came back to, wasn't it, how Jim would feel about it.

So when Sherlock Holmes, thinner and ginger and with shorter hair, but definitely the same man, bursts in, and Seb turns to face him, it should be no surprise to anyone that the words he's uttering even as his body shudders around a bullet and hits the floor are "I'm so sorry, James. I fucked up."


End file.
